Category Assignment

Category Assignment

Once you've personalized your categories, and added an account you'll need to finally "stuff the envelope" with cash! This is the fun part, assigning the money from your accounts into the categories you'll spend from. As an example, each month you'll want to assign dollars you have into the Groceries category so that when you spend against that category, you can "pull money out of the envelope" as the month goes on.

Keep in mind that this is intended to make sure you hold yourself accountable for any spending in a category, by virtually simulating the stuffing of cash into an envelope, and pulling cash out when a purchase is made.

To assign money to a category, you can accomplish this in two main ways… individually to a single category, or to multiple using the Quick Assign feature. We'll discuss how both of those processes look:

Assigning Budget to Individual Categories

To assign some of your available budget to an individual category, you can do so by simply navigating to the Budget page and clicking on one of your categories. You'll be able to assign a custom amount, or quick assign in full to hit your target for that month.

This is the same as opening a single envelope and putting cash into it, from which you'll spend

Quick Assigning to Multiple Categories

To assign some of your available budget to an multiple categories, you can do so by simply clicking the Quick Assign button located on the Activity page. This will open a screen where you'll be able to quick assign to all of your categories at once. This will assign budget to your categories in full, in the order they are listed. The goal here is to fund the highest priority categories first… your bills and needs will need accounted for before your wants are after all!

You'll be able to review the outcome of quick assign before saving and funding categories. If you do not have enough cash available to fully fund your month, assigning budget on an individual basis will likely be the better approach.